I wouldn't say its a WMD per say, but once it starts effecting a population that has nothing to do with the conflict other than living in the area, then there's something wrong happening. Especially when you are trying to make the population friendly towards you for the most part.

Also, I think maybe expanding the poll choices to include other possible points might do the poll more justice?

But they also give the many DU equipped mounted guns the ability to penetrate any cover, and could possibly be used by the abrams for this reason as well. DU is also used by many combat support aircraft to provide more effective air support, and is a key armor layer of all recent abrams tanks.

What do we have to suggest that depleted uranium is what caused the birth defects though? Are there figures that show it is increasing? I'm sure it isn't the only possible cause...

well, the huts and shit in afghan and Iraq are actually pretty strong. You'd be surprised.

Well, dud, that was the main thing I was getting at. The story is sensationalist. Despite what a lot of people seem to think without doing research, DU hasn't shown any actual health risk to anyone aside from who the weapons were meant to kill in the first place.

Warning: Being shot with Depleted Uranium has been shown to have the side effects of holes in abdomen, holes in chest, holes in arms, legs, feet, hands, and heads. Also shown are increased blood loss, impartial vision, sudden pain(in affected area), and death. Also Cancer.

Even so, I find it hard to imagine there are no other viable alternatives. It's not like our current enemies pose enough of a threat or challenge for us to NEED to use DU, considering how many other options there are.

KristallNacht wrote:That doesn't take into account we already have depleted uranium from the fact we have nuclear power. So the essential cost of the DU as a raw material is null.

And your own links say uranium is more abundant lol but the core idea is we are going to have DU in our industry no matter what. Might as well use it.

Uranium is more abundant than Tungsten itself, but Tungsten Carbide is half W, half C, so in total, no. Even with Tungsten, it's easier to extract, and it's only slightly less abundant than Uranium, hence the price differential. Diamond is vastly more expensive than both, yet carbon is significantly more abundant than either for the same reason.

So, we have nuclear waste just lying around, so use it for bullets? There are other uses for DU, you know. I don't see why you would contest the use of alternatives so much, Tungsten Carbide IS cheaper than DU, and that's just ONE material you could use instead. The price of raw materials isn't null just because it's the by product of a chemical reaction.

Last edited by Ringleader on Sun Mar 25, 2012 11:03 am; edited 1 time in total

Depleted uranium isn't waste. Its the significantly less radioactive bits of uranium. The radioactive bits are enriched uranium. So uranium costs money, then enriched goes to bombs and power plants and then the depleted is just there....its essential cost is null because its going to be stockpiled whether we are using it or not. The tungsten carbide would require MORE mining and production.

As far as I'm aware no uranium is enriched so that we can have DU so the production of DU is more than it is being used.

DU is classified as being nuclear waste, while also being classified as significantly less radioactive bits of uranium. It can be both at the same time.

Again, there are other uses for it, but it very well may be the case that DU becomes obsolete by newer materials, and the best course of action might be to just keep it stockpiled in caves or mine pits. Kinda like, other byproducts of nuclear enrichment.

Build more mines and factories? Well, why the hell not, more industry, more flexible industry too, given that there are more uses for WC than DU. I doubt the production of tank shells and yacht keels out of WC would put that much more of a strain on the WC industry than it's current uses.

Oh, but what's this? WC was already used as ammunition to great effect:

Tungsten carbide is often used in armor-piercing ammunition, especially where depleted uranium is not available or is politically unacceptable. W2C projectiles were first used by German Luftwaffe tank-hunter squadrons in World War II. Owing to the limited German reserves of tungsten, W2C material was reserved for making machine tools and small numbers of projectiles. It is an effective penetrator due to its combination of great hardness and very high density.[19][20]

Tungsten carbide ammunition can be of the sabot type (a large arrow surrounded by a discarding push cylinder) or a subcaliber ammunition, where copper or other relatively soft material is used to encase the hard penetrating core, the two parts being separated only on impact. The latter is more common in small-caliber arms, while sabots are usually reserved for artillery use.[21][22]

It's even used as a neutron deflector in nuclear bombs.

There are always other options too, WC is not the end-all of alternatives to DU, it's just a particularly good one.

To your second point:

The main by-product of enrichment is depleted uranium (DU), principally the U-238 isotope, with a U-235 content of ~0.3%. It is stored, either as UF6 or as U3O8. Some is used in applications where its extremely high density makes it valuable, such as the keels of yachts, and anti-tank shells.[10] It is also used with plutonium for making mixed oxide fuel (MOX) and to dilute, or downblend, highly enriched uranium from weapons stockpiles which is now being redirected to become reactor fuel.